Ohio State's plan for medical-center space a mystery

Monday

May 5, 2014 at 12:01 AMMay 5, 2014 at 5:32 PM

Officials remain tight-lipped about what steps they'll take to transform much of Ohio State University's medical campus after the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital moves into part of a new 300-foot-tall tower.

Ben Sutherly, The Columbus Dispatch

Officials remain tight-lipped about what steps they’ll take to transform much of Ohio State University’s medical campus after the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital moves into part of a new 300-foot-tall tower.

Final approval of plans for the future of buildings such as Rhodes, Doan and the James has been delayed for months. And officials have declined to share a timeline or a budget for the renovations.

Plans concerning the medical campus had been scheduled to go before the trustees who oversee Wexner Medical Center in November, but that stamp of approval has been delayed several times.

The earliest the project might now come before trustees is August. And that date could be pushed back again because staff members largely will be focused on the opening of the new cancer and critical-care hospital, said Peter Geier, the chief executive officer of the OSU Health System.

The $464 million hospital is the centerpiece of a $1.1 billion expansion of Wexner Medical Center. It will have 276 cancer beds — a net addition of 66 such beds — and an additional 144 intensive-care beds, half of which will be added later.

Geier would provide little explanation for the repeated delays other than to say that the health-care industry is changing rapidly. He acknowledged that several factors are influencing the timeline, including trying to determine the appropriate number of inpatient beds needed for future demand, the mix of inpatient and outpatient services and new-physician recruitment.

A plan that was up for consideration at one point would renovate space in the 25-year-old building now occupied by the James, creating a home for the university’s “signature neurosciences program.” The plan recently was posted online by Perkins+Will, a professional-services company in Chicago that was hired by Ohio State.

The document, which appears to have been prepared last year, also shows a floor plan for an 86-bed brain and spine hospital, a hospital that Wexner Medical Center officials previously have said would be in part of the space vacated by the James or in Rhodes Hall. The document also mentioned the modernization of University Hospital, with all patient rooms being made private, and the mother-and-baby unit in Doan and Rhodes halls to be converted to all private rooms.

Geier said the floor plan was an early concept created by Perkins+Will that is no longer under consideration.

Medical-center officials said in July that the brain and spine hospital would have 100 to 125 beds.

Medical center leaders declined to comment on the Perkins+Will document last week, saying the consultant should not have posted it. It was removed from the company’s website last week after The Dispatch’s inquiries.

Ohio State’s contract with Perkins+Will and its partners, including DesignGroup in Columbus, is for $1.03 million. The contract covers work such as concept brainstorming, statistical modeling for a range of variables and growth projections for multiple years for various departments.

A Perkins+Will employee declined to comment, referring questions about the medical-campus plan to Ohio State.

In October, the university redacted virtually all details about the backfill plan from public documents requested by The Dispatch, citing a need to protect what it described as trade secrets.

At the time, officials indicated that more information would be forthcoming when the medical-campus plan was supposed to go before the Wexner Medical Center board during its November meeting.

The university on Friday also declined a more-recent Dispatch request for records on the medical-campus reuse plan, again citing a need to protect trade secrets.